Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Elijah quotes

Here is Elijah wearing his "motorcycle helmet".

One of the things that we love about Elijah is hearing him talk and observing him learn language. When he's excited or really adamant, his voice gets really high. Also, he's just learned to whisper (I think because we tried to keep him quiet during our recent stomach bug.) Some of the expressions we share below he's stopped using in the last few weeks, but they are favorites.

"May by cuzed peeze?" (the word "peeze" is accompanied by rubbing his tummy for the sign language). This means "may I be excused please?" He's recently started answering his own question: Yes I may! (All our other kids always said "yes YOU may.")

Elijah loves to put together puzzles. First, he asks for someone to join him:

"Mommy...play...puzzles...me!" He's gotten past this slow speech, but it was so funny because it came out so deliberately - one word at a time.

He doesn't really need help any more. He's gotten amazingly good at 24-piece puzzles, and he does them several times a day. If a piece goes in the first place he tries, he says "Easy pot!" (part). Then, occasionally he looks up and says, "Mommy...I...doing...gate!" (great!) I suppose that means we've encouraged him with our words.

Sometimes, he tries to contradict what we're telling him. For example, we might be talking about Lightning McQueen (which is red, of course):

Parent: "What color is this?"

Elijah: "Just green." (He likes to stick the word "just" in where it doesn't really belong.)

Parent: "This car isn't green?!"

Elijah: "Yep, shuris."

This means "yep, it sure is."

"No, Daddy." (accompanied by big grin or giggles). He knows that the penalty for saying "No" to Daddy is being tickled! This is a request that he especially gives at meal time when he sits next to Daddy.

If we're out walking the streets of our neighborhood, he's very vigilant about the traffic (I'm sure because we're always keeping watch.) So, when he sees a car, he warns us: "Watch...out...Daddy...car...coming." The problem is that he works so hard at each word, the car usually passes before he finishes! He also used this to ask us to get out of the way when he wanted to roll his toy cars where we were standing.

This led to us using this phrase more frequently: "Watch out Elijah! Daddy's coming!" (Or we insert a lot of words in the place of "Daddy.")

"Bulgersh." This is his word for "Goldfish" that he started using at Christmas when some family shipped him some snacks. It took us a while to figure out what he was saying; then it became a favorite because it sounded a lot like "boogers." He's learning to pronounce it better, but he's not there yet.

He also plays interesting pretend games with Mater, Doc, Lightning McQueen, Sally and crew. He's watched his sisters play with their dolls, and the cars talk on the movie. So his cars have conversations, go to church, go to sleep at night, and even have birthdays!

When he requests anything to eat or he is asking to wear certain clothes, he "needs" it. It also used to be deliberate - one word at a time. "Mommy...need...fizzy...juice." We're working on him to ask: Mommy may I have some fizzy juice, please? Often he defaults to the phrase with "may I" that he already knows - "may by cuzed peeze" - when he means to ask for something else!

Wish you could hear them all in person, but hope you enjoyed this update on Elijah.